Atriplex serenana |
Atriplex covillei |
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bracteate orach, bractscale, saltscale, stinking orach |
Coville's orach |
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Habit | Herbs, annual, erect or sprawling, usually branched often forming tangled mats to 10 × (3–)5–20 dm, ascending branches sparsely scurfy. | Herbs, spreading, 1–4(–5) dm and as broad. | ||||
Stems | terete, sparsely scurfy when young. |
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Leaves | many, subsessile or very short petiolate; blade subconcolorous, lanceolate to oblong, elliptic, or oval, (8–)10–30(–40) × 3–12(–15) mm, margin sharply dentate to entire. |
petiole to 1/2 as long as blade (becoming subsessile distally); blade green or finally stramineous, (10–)20–50 × 6–30 mm, firm, base abruptly acute to narrowly cuneate, apex acute to attenuate, sparsely scurfy. |
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Staminate flowers | in glomerules in terminal spikes or panicles 3–20 cm, or reduced to solitary, rounded, terminal glomerule. |
in sessile glomerules in distal axils, often mixed with pistillate ones, staminate calyx deeply 5-cleft; lobes obtuse, not appendaged. |
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Pistillate flower(s) | in small clusters, axillary. |
with calyx of (1–)3(–5) hyaline sepals. |
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Seeds | brown, 1–1.3(–1.5) mm. |
dark reddish brown, 1–1.5 mm. |
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Fruiting | bracteoles sessile or subsessile (stipe to 1 mm), cuneate-orbicular to obovate, somewhat compressed, 2.1–3.5 × (1.7–)2–3.7 mm, united 1/2 of length, margin sharply and often slenderly toothed beyond middle, faces often rather strongly veined, smooth or with 1 or more slender or flattened appendages. |
bracteoles sessile or stipitate, 6–12 × 4–7 mm, margin mostly 3-lobed, with elongate terminal lobe triangular to lanceolate, 2 short rounded lobes at base or sides merely rounded at base, united to beyond middle. |
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2n | = 18. |
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Atriplex serenana |
Atriplex covillei |
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Phenology | Flowering summer–fall. | |||||
Habitat | Mixed saltbush-greasewood, rabbitbrush, warm desert shrub, and salt grass communities in saline substrates | |||||
Elevation | 800-1700 m (2600-5600 ft) | |||||
Distribution |
CA; NV; nw Mexico
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CA; NV; OR |
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Discussion | Varieties 2 (2 in the flora). (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Endolepis covillei was treated within the synonymy of Atriplex phyllostegia (Torrey) S. Watson by H. M. Hall and F. E. Clements (1923). H. C. Stutz et al. (1993) placed Atriplex covillei within Endolepis, based in large part on the presence of a perianth subtending the pistil within the fruiting bracteoles and on the lack of Kranz anatomy in the leaves. The pattern of venation is, nevertheless, very similar to that in species with Kranz anatomy. The presence of perianth scales in the pistillate flowers of A. covillei has been regarded as evidence of relationship with A. suckleyi. Despite placement of these taxa within Endolepis by Stutz et al. Atriplex covillei is possibly more closely allied to the morphologically similar and partially sympatric A. phyllostegia than it is to strongly dissimilar and the distantly disjunct A. suckleyi. Stutz and his associates placed great emphasis on the presence of reduced perianth segments subtending the pistil within the fruiting bracteoles of A. covillei. Calyces per se, otherwise known only in A. suckleyi and A. pleiantha, probably have arisen independently. Their presence does not necessarily indicate a close relationship. Stutz et al. pointed to other differences aside from the calyx of the pistillate flowers, and it is apparent that the two entities can stand as distinct species. To segregate A. covillei within a separate genus and to ally it with a species to which its relationships are obscure at best, stretches logic beyond reason. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
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Key |
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Source | FNA vol. 4, p. 361. | FNA vol. 4. | ||||
Parent taxa | Chenopodiaceae > Atriplex > subg. Obione > sect. Obione > subsect. Arenariae | Chenopodiaceae > Atriplex > subg. Obione > sect. Covilleiae | ||||
Sibling taxa | ||||||
Subordinate taxa | ||||||
Synonyms | Endolepis covillei | |||||
Name authority | A. Nelson ex Abrams: Fl. Los Angeles, 128. (1904) | (Standley) J. F. Macbride: Contr. Gray Herb. 53: 11. (1918) | ||||
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